Contemporary art until fairly recently had a strongly male vibe. The aggressive macho physicality of Picasso and some of the American Abstract Expressionists was balanced by the ironic, detached, quasi-scientific intellectuality of Duchamp and various conceptualists and postmodernists. With the coming of feminism in the 1970s, and Pattern and Decoration in the 1980s, art of a more lyrical sensibility —more in tune with Matisse’s idea of art as refuge from the daily grind, the famous armchair for the tired businessman— began to receive attention and respect.

Andrea Arroyo’s mythological paintings embody this feminine esthetic of physicality, color and movement — without Picassean misogyny or Duchampian alienation. A dancer of Mexican ancestry who began her thriving painting career almost by accident only a few years ago, Arroyo expresses an almost physical sense of harmony and well-being in her colorful, simplified depictions of goddesses and their occasional male consorts as embodiments of nature, growth and universal life force. These figures dream, awaken, dance and soar in a limitless eternal life, perfect in their unselfconscious and somewhat floral curvilinear beauty. Whether you interpret them as the Golden Age of Greek mythology or the Judaeo-Christian Paradise before the Fall, or some Garden-of-Earthly-Delights fantasy of harmony with nature that still eludes us (Baudelaire’s luxe, calme et volupté), these paintings breathe life into ancient and universal archetypes and yearnings. Even tired, overstressed urban businessmen and businesswomen can contemplate them for refreshment and inspiration.

Xochiquetzal, acrylic on canvas

Arthaus